Threat from teenage boys in sadistic’ web groups surges

The threat from teenage boys drawn into sadistic” online networks has surged with reports up sixfold in two years, the National Crime Agency has warned.

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN

Teenagers are being drawn into online gangs that compete to commit harrowing crimes including child abuse, fraud and sharing extreme violent and misogynistic material.

The NCA, which investigates serious and organised crime threats to the country, said the risks from teenage boys who become criminalised online in their bedrooms is “absolutely a priority for the country”.

They have called for parents, police and educators to help in the fight against teenage threats after reports relating to so-called “com networks” increased sixfold in the UK between 2022 and 2024.

Analysts estimate that thousands of teenagers – including offenders and victims – based in the UK and other Western countries have exchanged millions of messages relating to sexual and physical abuse.

The online groups are causing young people to “develop a dangerous propensity for extreme violence”, they warned, with many becoming “desensitised and radicalised”.

It comes after last week Nicholas Prosper was jailed for 49 years for murdering his family and plotting to become the deadliest school shooter in history after being drawn into an “internet wormhole”.

His family said he had become increasingly isolated and they had no idea of the atrocity the violence-obsessed 18-year-old was planning.

The NCA’s annual National Strategic Assessment, published yesterday, described the groups as networks on social media or messaging platforms that “routinely share harmful content and extremist or misogynistic rhetoric”.

It said: “Extreme and illicit imagery depicting violence, gore and child sexual abuse material is frequently shared amongst users, normalising and desensitising participants to increasingly extreme content and behaviours.